The website's report points out that Gov. Bobby Jindal has signed legislation that is expected to close all but one of the state's abortion clinics. Only the clinic in Shreveport is expected to stay open. That new law also includes a required 24-hour wait for the abortion pill. But it doesn't go into effect until September. So how could it be related to the black-market commerce?

I got three answers to that question. Jodi Jacobson, the editor-in-chief of RH Reality Check, said via Twitter that Louisiana's laws are already restrictive. She said there's already a 24-hour wait for all abortion services - including the abortion pill - and that the law written by Katrina Jackson requiring a 24-hour waiting period for the abortion pill is "superfluous."

As for the skepticism that women would go underground seeking the pill, she said, "Women are seeking medication abortion pills across the southern U.S. It's been documented in studies." Jacobson has not yet directed me to those studies as she promised, but I did find a July 2013 Bloomberg News report with the headline "Legal Abortions Made Harder, Texans Turn to Flea Market Pills."

The RH Reality Check story quotes Amy Irvin, a board member of the New Orleans Abortion Fund. I emailed questions to the Abortion Fund, and board member Jessie Nieblas answered.

"There are many reasons women seek abortions outside a clinic setting," she wrote, "and all are related to stigma and to anti-choice activities. The primary reason is the high cost of a legal abortion. These costs start adding up before the procedure even happens, at the mandatory ultrasound and counseling that must be performed 24 hours before the abortion. Because the physician (not a social worker, nurse, or other health care provider) has to provide much of the initial counseling, the clinic must compensate a physician's time, while the woman has to take two days off work, find childcare for two days, etc. Then, the actual abortion is quite expensive, again, because of onerous regulations that drive up the cost of abortion health care. Many women simply cannot afford an abortion in a clinic setting, even with the help of the New Orleans Abortion Fund."

Sylvia Cochran, an administrator for abortion clinics in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, told RH Reality Check the story of a woman who ended up in an emergency room after buying Cytotec on the street. I asked her by phone Thursday why a woman would be doing that now, that is, before the new law takes effect.

A two-drug combination that causes an abortion costs about $500 at a clinic, she said. Cytotec, an ulcer medication that is known to induce abortion as a side-effect, can be bought for as low as $175. The Bloomberg News story says Cytotec is being purchased at those Texas flea markets by Hispanic women. I don't know if Cochran is aware of the Bloomberg report, but she volunteered that Hispanic women are buying most of the black-market pills here. But, she added, "Black women are buying it, too."

"Everyday we get calls," she said. Some of those calls are from women asking how they're supposed to take the abortion pill. The pills meant to induce abortion are only supposed to be available at a clinic. So if women are calling to ask how it's supposed to be taken, that's an indication, Cochran said, that they didn't get it from a clinic.

"We always advise them not to take them if they don't know what they're taking," she said.

A January report from Cosmopolitan UK says that "internet gangs" there are making 500 million pounds a year selling the abortion pill. It includes a quote from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, which says, "Online pills will be the back-street abortions of the 21st century." Cochran says some Louisiana women who've had problems say they got the pill on the Internet.

As for why people should connect an increase in black-market activity with the law Jindal just signed, Cochran said that many women who've seen the headlines are under the mistaken impression that the clinics that are expected to close have closed already.